QUALIFYING
we could do.”
Daniel Ricciardo was, for
once, not totally happy with his
crucial Q3 second run:
“It was a bit scrappy on the
final run, we made a couple of
adjustments and it didn’t quite
work out - but that’s hindsight!
We were close to third, but not
close enough and we paid a bit
of a price by being sixth. We’ve
made progress throughout the
weekend and we were not too far
off, but it’s disappointing to just
miss out. The times were close,
but it could have been better.
Hopefully we can get a good start
tomorrow and see how we go,
the strategy will be interesting.”
Splitting them were the
Williams pair, with Rob Smedley
pretty happy with the outcome
–
almost:
“I'm pleased. The guys have
done a really good job to get
tyre warm-up turned around
and make sure the drivers were
comfortable in the first sector.
I'm pleased with the set-up and
the balance, the engineers and
drivers have done a great job.
There's just a small bitter taste
in my mouth that we're not third
and fourth, but that's just my
personal competitive spirit. It
was a good job by the team and
the drivers today and now we
need to convert this into lots of
points tomorrow.”
Despite bringing a number of
updates to Canada, the news
wasn’t significantly better for
Ferrari, although both made
it to Q3. Fernando, seventh,
summed it up:
"The result of qualifying
reflects the trend we have seen
since the start of the season.
As often happens, even if on
Friday we are front runners, on
Saturday we struggle a bit more.
The development package we
have brought here in Canada
has worked well, the car has
improved and I am pleased about
that, even if at the moment
we are unable to extract all the
potential out of the car.
“I think tomorrow's race
will not be easy, as it is hard
to overtake at the start here,
because there is not enough
room through the first two
corners. We will also have to
do a good job of managing tyre
degradation and of choosing the
right number of stops.”
The surprise top ten runner
this week turned out to be Jean-
Eric Vergne. Despite losing
track tijme on Friday, JEV put it
together well to make Q3 and
qualify eighth, ahead of Jenson
Button, who as usual was frank
about McLaren’s position:
“We’d been trying to adjust
the balance all through the
weekend, but we really
struggled in free practice this
morning. Still, it’s a positive
that the changes we made for
qualifying were a clear step
for ward.
“My fastest time in Q3 was
almost good enough for eighth –
I lost out by just two-hundredths
-
but ninth is probably better in
terms of starting position on
the grid, because it’ll be on the
clean side.
“Looking ahead to tomorrow,
it’s going to be hard to read the
tyres’ behaviour in these very
hot conditions. They’re very
easy to grain, so if you can look
after them throughout a stint, it
could make a big difference in
the race.”
FORMULA 1TM GRAND PRIX DU CANADA 2014
70 LAPS
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FORMULA 1TM GRAND PRIX DU CANADA 2014
QUALIFYING CLASSIFICATION
1 – Having never qualified in the top-3 in Montreal, Nico Rosberg is on pole as Mercedes lockout the front row for the 3rd
consecutive race weekend. This was an incredibly close session, as Hamilton’s lockup on his final lap cost him 0.096s
relative to his best sector 2 time, bigger than the 0.079s that separated him from pole. Adding up both drivers’ best three
sectors would have meant Lewis Hamilton would be on pole here by just 0.009s.
2 – This is the first time that Lewis Hamilton has ever been outqualified by a teammate in Montreal. Even so, he keeps up
his streak of qualifying on the front row for every race this season, with 0.595s being the gap between him and third-placed
Sebastian Vettel, who has his lowest start in Montreal since 2008! He also has the fairly major handicap of being 10.5km/h
(6.5mph) slower in the trap than Valtteri Bottas, who starts alongside him.
3 – In addition to Bottas, Felipe Massa’s 5th on the grid – his best of the season – makes this the first time that both Williams
cars have started in the top-5 for a Grand Prix since Malaysia 2006. They hadn’t even got both cars in the top-10 on the grid
on this track in exactly 10 years. While Daniel Ricciardo has a first top-10 start in Canada, this was his worst qualifying
performance of the season (not including his 10-place Bahrain penalty).
4 – Fernando Alonso starts from 7th, his worst qualifying in Canada since lining up 22nd for Minardi way back in 2001, while
Jean-Eric Vergne has a 2nd consecutive top-8 start in Canada, and 2nd consecutive top-8 start of 2014. Kimi Räikkönen still
hasn’t started higher than 10th on this circuit since he was the reigning world champion back in 2008. Nico Hülkenberg
starts 11th for the 3rd time in the last 5 races (but has scored in all 5 of them).
5 – Sergio Perez kept up his record of never starting in the top-10 at a Canadian GP, while Romain Grosjean starts from the
same position (14th) as he did in Monaco. A 15th place on the grid is Daniil Kvyat’s worst performance of his 7-race career so
far, and as in Monaco, neither Sauber driver qualified in the top-15, with Adrian Sutil being 0.601s adrift of the next driver.
6 – Lotus’ Pastor Maldonado was knocked out in Q1 for the 6th time in 7 races, while Max Chilton has now outqualified Jules
Bianchi more times (3) than he did in all of last season (2). A gearbox penalty drops Kamui Kobayashi behind Marcus
Ericsson, who crashed in Q1 for the 2nd straight race weekend, while Esteban Gutierrez will start from the pitlane after
damaging the tub by crashing at turn 3 during FP3.
27
GPWEEK.com // 27
GPWEEK.com //
F1 >>> CANADA
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